Thursday Morning Coffee: The Thursday Five.

Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers. We're back in action after spending a fascinating and edifying day in scenic Greensburg, Pa., where we received a crash course in all things natural gas.

Thanks to the experts at the Penn State Extension, we now know, for instance, that Utica shale is not only buried deeper, it also has slightly more dark meat than Marcellus shale; that if you shake natural gas really, really hard it turns into butter and basically, that it's Range Resources' world and we're just living in it.

Also, no matter how old you are, you will giggle uncontrollably every time you hear a grown man talking about "gas evacuation."

With that in mind, we're in as bad a need of getting up to date as the rest of you, so why don't we dispense with the formalities and just jump right into the Top Five Headlines making news this 10th day of August?

1. Despite warnings from employees, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board went ahead with an ill-starred plan to install wine kiosks in select grocery stores, the Post-Gazette reports this morning. In July 2008, an evaluation committee at the agency recommended that the board not enter into a contract with a company called Simple Brands from Conshohocken. The firm was the only one to submit a proposal to supply the kiosks, the PG reports. The day after the committee submitted its recommendation, an attorney for the LCB told the employees to hand over all hard copies of their report and to delete all electronic copies, the PG reports. The revelations came to light after House Majority Leader Mike Turzai's office distributed copies of the e-mail from the LCB attorney, who has since left the position. He also released copies of the committee's evaluation of the Simple Brands proposal.Turzai, more astute readers will recall, is sponsoring the bill that would privatize Pennsylvania's more than 70-year-old state operated liquor system and turn over operations of state stores to private vendors. A spokeswoman for the LCB said it's standard practice for the agency to destroy electronic copies of evaluations. The spokeswoman, Stacey Witalec, couldn't immediate say whether it was unusual to award a contract to a vendor that received a bad evaluation, the PG reported.

2. The House Labor & Industry Committee sparred over Pennsylvania's prevailing wage law with the partisan results you'd pretty much expect, the PAIndependent reports this morning.Rep. Ron Miller, R-York, the panels's chairman, said lawmakers "have to make sure that the Pennsylvania taxpayers are getting the best value on public projects. Why are the taxpayers subsidizing a small subset of workers within the state who are lucky enough to work on a prevailing wage job?” That prompted this response from Rep. Bill Keller of Philadelphia, the committee's ranking Democrat: "The prevailing wage does protect the taxpayers … by making sure that public works projects are done with the highest skill available.” The utterly predictable debate comes as Miller pushes a bill that would replace prevailing wages, considered as evil as the Soviets by most Republicans, with something called "the average occupational wage," which factors in all wages in the country and not just union wages. The change would result in savings for local governments, but less pay for workers, the Indy reported.

3. A U.S. Department of Energy committee wants energy companies to reveal the ingredients for the cocktail of chemicals they use in natural gas fracking, the AP reports this morning. The panel, convened by Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the behest of the White House, says there's little risk to the stew of chemicals that companies use to break up rock to release natural gas. But with increasing public concern about the process, there's no reason there can't be (to paraphrase Elvis here) a little more conversation, the AP reports. "In our judgment, they should disclose the entire suite of chemicals," said Chu, who may not have spent a lot of time trying to talk to energy companies about what's in the gunk they use to break up the rock. Getting answers about the latest plot twist on "True Blood" tends to be easier.

4. Four years after a state audit revealed that some people who don't qualify for low-income heating assistance, the abuse of the program is continuing, Auditor General Jack Wagner said Wednesday. The PG reports this morning that that's the conclusion Wagner drew after his office revisited the state's Low Income Heating Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to see whether the Department of Public Welfare had improved its oversight since an audit in 2007. It hasn't, Wagner told reporters. In a statement, the agency said it disagreed with Wagner's conclusions.

5. Pennsylvania's state-testing standards aren't that tough, according to a report released Wednesday. The report by the National Center for Education Statistics details how proficiency standards for state tests measure up against each other and against the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often known as the Nation's Report Card, the PG reports. PA isn't that tough. But then, neither are most other states, which fall below the center's national benchmark for proficient performance.

What Goes On (Nakedly Political Edition). State Sen. John Blake, D-Lackawanna, holds his first golf tournament at Elmhurst Golf Course in Moscow, Pa. today. Admission is $100 for a dinner and $200 to golf. Fore!

On The Capitol Ideas iPod This Morning. We found ourselves in the mood for a little dancehall this morning. So who better to supply it than Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley? Here's "Welcome to Jam Rock."

Current Comments

These contraptions are symbolic of a useless state agency devising a Rube Goldberg solution to a problem caused by its own existence.

49 other states allow private sales of wine and beer in supermarkets and other retail outlets; spirits in commercial stores.

However, our esteemed Commonwealth protects the jobs of the employees of the PLCB and maintains a government monopoly and comes forth with these contraptions that don't work and serve no real purpose in the first place.

Posted By: David-1206 | Aug 11, 2011 10:10:55 AM

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